Ken Abernethy received a BS with honors from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and master's and PhD degrees from Duke University. He has 30 years of teaching and consulting experience. He is the Herman N. Hipp Professor of Computer Science. He was formerly the chair of the Computer Science Department at Furman University and is currently the director of Furman's Rushing Center for Teaching and Technology. His current professional interests are focused in the areas of software development methodologies, software reliability tools and methods, and software project management.